


veritas

by theseourbodies



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e08 Lamia, Friendship, Gen, Recovery, it's about waiting to receive it, sometimes it's not about asking for forgiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26974543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/theseourbodies
Summary: Something is wrong with Merlin.Episode tag toLamia
Relationships: Gaius & Merlin (Merlin), Knights of the Round Table & Merlin (Merlin), Leon & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Leon & Merlin (Merlin)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 339





	veritas

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-ep. Something of a fix-it.

Something is wrong with Merlin. 

Arthur might say that there is always something deeply and irrevocably wrong with Merlin, his favorite claim when he’s annoyed or worried or, increasingly, trying to get a rise. Unfortunately for Leon, Arthur’s word is law, but that does not make everything he says the truth. 

This is not to say that something is not often wrong in Merlin’s life. Leon has eyes in his head and a keen and hard-earned sense of observation; it hadn’t taken much time of increased contact with Merlin before Leon noticed that yes, sometimes there was something troubling the man.

This is how he knows without a doubt: whatever it is that’s bothering Merlin now, it is not like the usual things. The usual somethings are familiar to Leon: the inexplicably low moods, the strange awareness not unlike a soldier’s after the end of hard battle, the bruises under Merlin’s eyes from sleepless nights. The more serious bruises on the rest of his body, rarely seen and never asked after. Leon knows what these things look like on Merlin; he has even started to guess what they mean in the context of the then-prince, now-king and the kingdom. 

Merlin’s anxiety is never a light thing to be aware of, Leon’s found. He does not begrudge Arthur his ignorance, even if Leon has started to think it is becoming more and more willful. 

But now something is wrong that has nothing to do with Arthur or the kingdom or some secret peril to one or both, Leon can tell. Leon is beginning to realize that whatever it is that is wrong with Merlin has to do with the knights alone—has to do with Leon, specifically. It’s closing doorways between them and Merlin that Leon hadn’t realized had always been open before; it’s burning bridges, and Leon can almost feel the flames.

\---

Merlin says, “Of course, Sir Leon,” and it takes Leon a while to notice what it is that’s so strange about it. He recalls the scene after Merlin leaves the armoury—a skill he usually uses on patrol or during investigations, not for interactions with men he considers friends. 

Merlin, standing with his back to the near wall. Merlin with his hands out of sight. Merlin with a familiar smile on his face. Merlin, listening and not offering anything in return but crisply courteous yeses or, once, an I will see. 

It is not that Merlin is a bad servant, but he is other things that might lead anyone who did not know him to think him bad at service. Irreverent and bold—bold for any man, let alone for a servant—and over-trusting. Warm—again, too warm for any man, much too warm and welcoming for a servant. Merlin has the unfortunate tendency to like people instantly, with few exceptions. Leon has always been someone held high in Merlin’s warm regard; finding himself suddenly in danger of losing that regard (or worse) makes him feel embarrassingly frantic.

\---

Three days later, Merlin ghosts out of the stables with a stiff, “if that’s all, sirs.” 

Leon and Leon’s knights watch him go, all of them preternaturally still.

“So that was—that was strange, wasn’t it?” Elyan asks into the chill of the stables. His breath ghosts out of him in the cold, like he’s letting something else lose with the question. 

They all look to Leon eventually. Elyan is already watching him, strangely uncertain; young, so young still. Percival is nodding, looking between Leon and Elyan; as young as Elyan, and even less worldly. Gwaine huffs and grumbles as he relieves his horse of saddle and tack himself, but keeps them all in the corner of his eye. He’s been upset and covering it poorly since before Merlin left.

They are all, in their own way, anxious. Enough, Leon thinks, looking at their faces turning to him. Enough of this. 

“I think something may have happened,” he tells them finally, heavily. “I don’t know when, but I also don’t remember much of Lamia—of the Lamia.” That memory gap was the most recent disaster to strike Arthur’s knights, and it lines up depressingly well with Merlin’s sudden change in attitude. 

Percival shakes his head, forehead creased with worry. “Me neither.”

“Gwen said it was almost two days we were with her, but I—it felt like minutes,” Elyan says. “It feels like—” he holds his hand up helplessly, forefinger and thumb held close together. “Feels like nothing could have happened that bad in so little time.” 

“Lots of bad things have happened in less time than days. It only takes seconds,” Gwaine says quietly, talking to his saddle while he fidgets with it. Leon might have approved of Gwaine’s sudden interest in horsemanship if it was less obvious he was just fiddling to fiddle.

“He would have told us—” Percival starts, and visibly reconsiders whatever he was going to say. “If something had happened to Gwen, he would have told us.” It’s a small comfort, very small. Elyan goes swiftly ashen with realization and slumps back against a stall door. Percival pats him apologetically for causing the burst of retroactive fear on his friend’s face.

“Nothing happening to Gwen doesn’t mean nothing happened,” Gwaine snaps, and Percival curls away from him slightly, the vaguest suggestion of a sulk. 

“Wasn’t saying that,” Percival says to the air over Gwaine’s head, perfectly calm. 

Leon steps between them. “I don’t want to argue about this, I want to fix it,” he tells them all, giving Gwaine’s stricken face a severe look. “Merlin’s not just a friend he’s—” Leon stumbles a little, thinking, yes, he is a friend, with faint shock-- “he’s the closest servant to Arthur.” Leon finds his courage fails when it comes to claiming Merlin as a friend on Arthur’s behalf, but he lets himself think it, Merlin is Arthur’s closest friend. “We cannot be at odds, us against him.” 

“Him against us,” Elyan corrects grimly, “We don’t know what we’ve done, We didn’t—I didn’t know until just now.” 

Leon sees on their faces, in the tension in their bodies, that they have realized what he has. He would bet good money that they had noticed the same things about Merlin that he had—the moods and the tension, the watchfulness. It had struck Leon early after he had realized that Merlin was being cautious around him that Leon did not really like being just another thing that was bothering Merlin. It was—it was pathetically demoralizing. 

Gwaine suddenly slumps against his saddle on its saddle-horse. He scrubs at his face and lets out a truly retched little laugh. “You know what I can’t help thinking?” He asks, catching all of them in a sweeping glance. “I can’t stop thinking: Lancelot would know what to do.” 

Leon, who had had the same miserable thought off and on for the last few days, only nods, feeling sorry for himself. 

\---

“We should ask the king.” 

“We are not asking the king. He’s going to go through the same panic as Elyan—”

“Hey!” 

“—And we’ll get nothing of use out of him. We need to talk to Gwen first.” 

“I told you what Gwen told me,” Elyan says sharply, still stung—so sensitive about such strange things. “That we were with the Lamia for almost two days and we were sort of—she said enthralled?” He stops suddenly, looking vaguely ill. “You don’t think that’s the problem, do you? Like maybe she made us do something that was—” 

“What, embarrassing?” Gwaine scoffs. “What could be embarrassing enough for Merlin to shun us?” 

“—Against the code, Gwaine,” Eyan finishes, nudging him. “Something— something shameful.” 

It’s a grim thought, though Leon still wants to consider other options. Merlin plays rather fast and loose with his own honor, but his sense of duty sometimes shames Leon’s own. If any of them had acted in a way that Merlin thought went against their duty to Arthur or the kingdom—

“He knew we were under a spell,” Percival says thoughtfully. “Treating us differently because of something we did when we didn’t have free will—that’s not Merlin.” 

They’ve taken this strategy session into Leon’s rooms, which are of a size befitting his station as First Knight. They still fill his small antechamber near to bursting, all of them sitting around his table, big in body and personality. Gwaine slumps apologetically into Elyan’s shoulder from his seat beside him. 

He actually apologizes a moment later, to Leon’s genuine shock.

“Sorry, I’m—it’s not usually us that he’s mad at,” Gwaine says to Elyan, to all of them, and Leon understands that he’s really saying _It’s not usually me_. Leon knows, vaguely, how Gwaine came to be so connected with Merlin, but even without the particulars, Leon understands enough about Gwaine to fill in the blanks. “And I think Percy’s right; Merlin would have cared more that we were out of our minds, not that we had done anything dishonorable or against our duty.”

  
That leaves just one other option that Leon can see: if they hadn’t shamed themselves; if they hadn’t hurt Gwen or one another; if they hadn’t betrayed their duty; that could only mean that what had been done had been done to Merlin, and it had cracked something between them. 

“We need to talk to Gwen,” Leon decides, and this time Elyan just nods. “And then I think we need to talk to Merlin.” 

\---

At first, Gwen will not talk to them for love or family. For the first time, Leon realizes that she’s been troubled by something as well. When they seek her out, she greets them all with the familiar chill of a servant of the royal household, someone who knows their station and also knows that, regardless of knighthood or holdings, of lineage or name, they still hold a certain power that ought to be respected. Leon thinks that even her elevation could not have made Gwen more powerful, more aloof in that single moment.

Leon falters at her greeting. He’s not proud of it, but he won’t deny the facts. Thankfully, the little cluster of knights still has their secret weapon.

“So you didn’t tell me everything,” Elyan says hotly. “Dammit Gwen! You’re not allowed to be angry at us if you haven’t even given us the courtesy of knowing what it is we’ve done!” 

All that ice cracks wide open suddenly, and Gwen is just a sister of a brother again, regardless of their stations. “You do not,” she says, just as hot, “get to talk to me about what I can and cannot be angry about, Elyan! It’s all well and good to pretend to forget if you like, but you don’t get to tell me when I need to stop being angry!” 

“What we—pretend? Gwen, we don’t remember, we don’t remember anything! I remember those bandits—if I try, really try, I can remember Percival holding Lam—the girl. But that’s all!” 

Gwen falters from her growing rage. “That’s all?” 

“On my honor! On our father’s name, Gwen! I’ll swear on anything you like, you just have to believe me.” 

There’s a moment where all of them appear to be holding their breaths, and then—it snaps. 

“Oh, _Elyan_ ,” Gwen whispers, “Oh, _no_.”

\---

  
Gwen has quite a bit to say; the story’s progress is not helped by her natural hesitation to be deliberately hurtful, and the information she gives them does hurt. 

“I didn’t know what was happening at first,” she tells them, looking at them all in turn. “I thought— you were overtired, perhaps, or—well, she was very beautiful, and none of us are immune to the helpless. That’s why you’re all here.” 

Leon lets her talk, uninterrupted. He wants desperately to stop her. He wants to get up and walk away. He doesn’t. He sits and he listens to the whole story because he owes it to her. 

She looks thoughtful when she talks about the shaking in the old castle that had taken her from Elyan’s side. “I know what Arthur thinks, and Merlin didn’t want me to dissuade him, but— I was only there with him for a few minutes.” She lifts her chin—

_And it is all Morgana, Morgana as she was, the headstrong young ward of the most powerful king of their region, demanding that she be listened to and heard, demanding_ respect _—_

\--and says, “It was Merlin who went after you, all of you. We stayed with you because we were desperately worried about what would happen to you, and I know that he was the one who saved all your fool lives, regardless of who made the finishing blow.” 

They had shamed themselves, then, and hurt a man who could not fight back, will-he, nil-he. Leon had often wondered, after some moment of mockery or another, if there was anything that Merlin could not stand. He’s ashamed that the thought was so idle, for now Leon had accomplished what even Arthur had not—he had discovered Merlin’s line in the dirt and then thoroughly cross it. 

Gwen attempts to take pity on them. “Listen, I think—I don’t think being pushed around bothered him,” she says, but Leon notices that she says _bothered_ and not _hurt_ or _injured_. “You have to understand that Merlin serves Arthur, and he’s been serving Arthur since he came here. Before that— no. Ealdor had a liege lord and they owed him his yearly tax, but I think—I think that was as involved as the lord and the people got with one another. That’s the type of noble relationship that Merlin had, before.” She looks to Leon; of all of them, Leon will know exactly what she means. 

And he does, he understands immediately. There are servants, who grow up in the profession and might serve many masters or only one. They have their own honor to keep and their own pride. They are the children of other servants; they are the grandchildren of servants, usually. 

And then, there are people who serve, and Merlin is one of these. Leon’s father had known a similar man, Gregory (“known”, because to say that Leon’s father had “had” that man would be laughable.) Gregory had spent his time loping around after Leon’s father, accompanying him as a companion more than as a helping hand. He had held Lord Lionel’s spear on the hunt; he had sat with Lionel at the fire after the day was done, and had shared his counsel with Lionel freely. He had managed Lionel’s horses, and had taught Leon everything that Leon now knew about horseflesh, but Gregory had not been master of his father’s stables. And then, when Lionel had been called out to satisfy the oaths he had made to Uther Pendragon, Leon remembers watching his father ride off at the head of his rippling column of soldiers with Gregory sitting right beside him, bare-chested and draped in a flowing, well-wrapped cloak over a kilt of the same fabric. Even as a boy, Leon had understood the difference between this and what every other servant was. 

And when Gregory had ridden back with a mortally-wounded Lionel, he had sat at Lionel’s bedside and then left the hold as soon as Leon’s father’s soul had left his mortal body. Leon had never asked the man what he had meant to his father, and he had never asked his father what he had done to earn the unending loyalty of such a man. Leon hasn’t seen Gregory since that day; he knows, in an animal way, that he will never see him again.

There are servants, and there are those that serve; Gregory had been the latter, and Merlin was, too. He tries to imagine Merlin as the man that Gwen had described—careful, guarding what he said, and taking punishment for it, again and again. A man alone with a woman he needed to protect and four full knights who were eager to villainize him, eager to put him down any way they could. 

Leon thinks of Merlin standing in the armoury with him, alone for the first time since the Lamia. Merlin, standing with his back to the near wall. Merlin with his hands out of sight. Careful, watchful, anxious. Something had been wrong, and Leon had only realized after Merlin had gone.

“We need to talk to Merlin,” he finally says, an order this time, and he sounds exhausted even to his own ears. His knights nod around him, a flutter of pale and dark heads at the edges of his vision.

\---

Recent revelations aside, Leon still has to go about his work.

“I want a complete patrol dispatched—make sure they carry enough provisions for a fortnight, though I don’t anticipate it taking them longer than a few days.” Arthur tells him quietly, pacing along the corridor to the next meeting with yet another group of advisors. Leon has watched Arthur adapt to every burden that has been placed upon him in this way—smoothly and unstoppably. The business of armies and laws, that is the business for the never ending chambers of old men in the chains and robes of advisors; the business of daily life and the knights, that still belonged to Arthur alone in these bright and open corridors with Leon walking dutifully beside him. 

“That Mercian ambassador needs to be watched; the guard has reported him lurking around the public gates into the inner courtyard, and I won’t have him in here causing mischief with rumor or worse. Also—the slavers,” Arthur continues, and Leon nods. “I don’t care what they are or are not allowed in Olaf’s kingdom, if I have to hear another case about them taking someone from our outlying villages, I’ll start ordering floggings, damn what Lord Alfden has to say about it. And Leon—” Arthur comes to complete stop, and Leon halts beside him. 

“There’s—listen, I want you to keep an eye on Merlin for the next few days,” Arthur says in a familiar rush, a hectic flush already rising on his face. “He’s been—he’s been even more annoying than usual. And he’s been acting strange around the training grounds when I’ve had need of him there. If there’s something going on, I should probably know” Arthur says carefully, and Leon wonders that this man, awkward in his caring for a single person, is the same who had just been so casually caring for the population of an entire kingdom only moments before. 

“Ah,” says Leon, abruptly compelled to confession. “I may know something of what’s happening, sire. Elyan, Percival, Gwaine, and I are handling it already.” 

“All four of you,” Arthur says, his chin coming up. It’s not a question, but Leon bows his head and answers “yes.” 

“You would tell me, if anything—if there was anything.” 

Leon looks at him and thinks, _Yes my lord, there is, there is something, we have harmed your friend and ours and we are sorry_. But again, courage fails him. It is in Leon to be dutiful; it is not in him to self-flagellate. Besides, confessing to Arthur will not relieve him of the duty he must still perform. Telling Arthur, letting Arthur’s wrath come down on him, this will not fix things between the knights and Merlin.

“I would, sire.” 

\---

Gwaine’s in a fine temper on their way up to Gaius’ rooms; his nerves grate against Elyan’s, but they don’t snipe at one another like they normally would. They are all grim and resolved, and nothing can now dissuade them. 

They get all kinds of looks on their way up to Gaius’ tower, ranging from nervous to askance—servants and lords alike don’t seem to know quite what to do about Arthur’s most loyal and outrageous knights going anyplace so quietly. A lifetime ago, a step back in the succession, and Leon would have burned with shame to have such a reputation following him or his knights. But that was before these men, these brave and bold and title-less men, had been the only ones to follow Arthur to retake the kingdom. When Leon had been powerless, they had come with Arthur and put the sword and a fight right back in his hands. And now, with one of them gone forever already, Leon thinks that these men have earned the right to be loud and boisterous. They deserve to be happy in any way that moves them. 

Far from embarrassed, Leon is only touched by how solemn they are, even with Gwaine’s nervous anger putting them on edge. His brave men, he thinks, the best of his knights. Leon is not sure he could do this without them. He is not sure they would have made it to this point if he had not talked with them. 

They troop on together, still silent

\---

In hindsight, storming into Merlin’s safehaven all at once, all anxious and unfamiliar with the sensation, was the worst idea he had had in a long time. Leon supposes that it could be worse—they could all still be armed for training, in the full red and the gold. As it is, they’re rather committed now, all of them ranged around Gaius’ work room with the facing the last challenge to meeting with Merlin: Gaius himself.

They mill about like boys caught playing in forbidden places under Gaius’ gimlet stare. Leon has been a knight now for longer than he was ever a boy, but he still tucks his hands behind him, clutching them together at the small of his back.

We mean him no harm Leon wants to say. He traps the words behind his teeth, to save himself the indignity of begging. He is a man of status and noble lineage; some small, hard piece of his soul commands that he draw himself up and demand to know where Merlin has gone, or, better yet, seat himself and wait comfortably. But again he remembers the men at his back, none of them more noble than Merlin and yet proudly bearing the knighthood better than any others in the cohort.

“I of course cannot stop you from doing whatever you deem necessary,” Gaius tells them all smoothly and with an impressive frown. “But I do question the wisdom of cornering Merlin when you all are sure that you’ve done something for which you feel compelled to apologize.”

Gaius admitting that he couldn’t stop them is not at all comforting.

“Perhaps-- you could tell him we were looking for him? It’s just something we need to talk through with him, Gaius, that’s all. I’m worried--”

“We’re worried he’s avoiding us and we want to apologize and get started on fixing whatever it is we need to fix,” Gwaine interrupts smoothly. Leon is both annoyed and deeply grateful. 

“Please Gaius,” Percival asks, and his whole body seems to droop a little. “Merlin is our friend and I’m worried we’ve hurt him badly enough that we can’t just let it heal.”

“Please Gaius,” Elyan repeats. “At least just tell him we were here.”

“I’m really not sure--”

Everyone stills at the sound of scuffling just outside the door. Leon almost presses a hand to the hilt of his sword but hesitates; there are very few people who can make it to Gaius’ tower, and surely no one with ill-will would be quite so loud about it. 

Leon is proven right when the latch finally lifts and Merlin himself tumbles into the room, already talking. 

“Gaius you have to help me, I—O-oh.”

“If you were trying to avoid them it looks like the game is up, Merlin,” Gaius tells him, not unkindly. “I have told them I cannot make them go but—”

“No, no, that’s quite alright. I—Gaius would you mind--?”

“Of course not, of course not.” Gaius carefully lifts a round sided bag from its peg, half hidden in the cheerful chaos. The trust of kings is no small thing; Gaius could be hiding all kinds of betrayals in this mess, and none would ever think to look. “I will return within the hour, do try not to make a mess of the place.” He and Merlin share a significant look, belying Gaius’ flippancy. Leon has no doubt that despite his claimed inability, Gaius would find a way to remove them all if Merlin just wished it. 

“Right, well,” Merlin starts, familiar and awkward once again. They have shocked him out of his chilly behavior, but Leon is not glad for the change. Merlin masquerading as a good servant had at least been subtle about not meeting any of their eyes. “What did you need me for?”

Leon’s bold and brave knights look to him anxiously and Leon squares his shoulders. He can do this. It’s not just for his sake, really. 

“I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, Merlin. I—we want to just talk with you about what happened with Lam—with the Lamia. We weren’t ourselves, but that’s no excuse.” They had agreed before coming here that they wouldn’t offer apologies; they were too weak. Merlin had to know already that they were sorry; Leon thinks that it might be more important for Merlin to know that it won’t ever happen again, that nothing that Leon or the knights had said or done were secret feelings of theirs that they were hiding from him. Leon himself has grown too much to stand that Merlin might always look at him and wonder if Leon really did hold him in contempt as a servant.

“Gwen told us—she told us what it was like, when you and Gwen stayed with us.” Gwaine cuts in, gentle as Leon has ever heard him. “She was under the impression that we were trying to sweep it under the rug, that we remembered everything, but—”

“But that’s not the case,” Elyan says, sharp with remembered annoyance. “We didn’t remember what we’d done. We didn’t know, Merlin, you have to believe me.”

Merlin does not relax. He still keeps a careful space between them and him, and Leon notes absently that Merlin has also no abandoned his place before the door to the hallway though surely the animal part of his brain yearns for the comfort of his own bedchamber at his back. It is an extremely depressing display.

“We just wanted to say that we’re sorry, for what it’s worth,” Percy finally says into the ensuing awkward silence. “Gwen said that I, that I gave the worst of it to you. It won’t happen again, I’ll make sure.” 

Merlin’s jaw goes tight as they watch; Leon wishes, just once and for the first time, that he could use magic, if only to read Merlin’s mind and find the root of that anger.

Leon’s throat is tight; it hadn’t just been Percival, and they all know that, now. He clears it stubbornly. 

“We weren’t ourselves. If we had been, we wouldn’t have threatened you or hurt you, you or Gwen. We—I wanted to tell you that myself.”

There is a long and terrible silence while Merlin badly suppresses his need to fidget and the knights hold their breath and wait. 

Finally, their friend looks up. He sweeps his gaze over all of them and Leon is genuinely proud that none of them step back; Merlin’s eyes are colder than Leon has ever seen, piercing with something that he doesn’t and doesn’t want to understand.

“I know you were compelled,” Merlin says carefully, almost dismissively. “I know that you wouldn’t have done those things, wouldn’t have threatened Gwen like you did.”

“Or you,” Gwaine whispers, so earnest and low that Leon looks at him askance.

“I know. My mind knows that, but no matter what Arthur says it’s a lot smarter than my feelings are.” Merlin drags in a deep breath and lets it go again haltingly. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t tear up, and Leon aches for him. “I know you all very well, you see. But that doesn’t matter much to the things I’m feeling, do you understand?” 

Leon always forgets how tall Merlin is, always forgets until he’s struck anew in moments like this, when Merlin rises from his usual, comfortable slouch. He’s so very skinny, but it is a foolish man who underestimates the strength of that tall, lithe body. Leon has to physically shake the unease creeping up on his mind, the feeling a hunter gets when he knows he is in bear country and the forest has gone far too silent around him. It’s only _Merlin_. 

“I will forgive you,” Merlin says softly, but Leon does not relax. “I shall. But not right now. Please don’t ask me to say it right now.”

Leon’s breath catches in his throat, trying to make sense of what Merlin is trying to tell him, to tell all of them. Lancelot would know, he thinks to himself, bitter and sad. Lancelot always seemed to know what Merlin was saying, underneath the surface. 

As usual, Percival cuts to the heart of the matter. “Ok, Merlin. Ok. We’ll leave you alone, right? We’ll let you work it out, and then we’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Merlin slumps, finally, nodding weakly. “Thanks Perce. Thanks.” He skirts the little of huddle of knights easily enough, headed back to the staircase leading to his chamber while they all watch him like lost little children. 

Leon isn’t the only one who perks up when Merlin looks back at them. 

“It was nice, letting me know that it wasn’t something you’ve been sitting on and that the Lamia took advantage of,” he mumbles. “My mind knew it, but my heart’s a bit of a prat, you know?” 

Leon smiles at the joke, at the sheepish look on Merlin’s fey little face. “Thanks for talking with us, Merlin.”

His knights file out after they watch Merlin ascend the steps. Leon wonders if they feel as strangely as he does; he wonders if they understood him better than he did, or if they, too, had felt like they were staring down a predator for a moment too long while Merlin had talked. 

Leon lies abed that knight and thinks of Lancelot, of Arthur. He wonders what they would have made of what Merlin had said, but he knows he will always remain ignorant. Lancelot is gone; in the case of Arthur, Leon claims a blissful, willful ignorance. 

He doesn’t sleep, but he feels that he owes at least one sleepless night to Merlin and Gwen, to the world where good men could be so wicked because a strange foundling creature willed it so. 

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone and their mother has written a coda/tag for this ep but listen there's a REASON FOR THAT


End file.
